Linda Garcia, MD, Recognized in June 13 Issue of Newsweek Magazine for Innovative Approach to Treating Alcoholism
The effective, multi-faceted therapy for alcoholism combines medication, nutritional supplements, self-administered hypnotherapy and simple modifications to diet and exercise.
(PRWEB via PR Web Direct) June 6,
2005 -- Dr. Linda Garcia, an Alaska internist specializing in the early
recognition and treatment of alcoholics, was highlighted in the June 13, 2005
issue of Newsweek Magazine for her work using a multi-faceted, therapeutic
approach to treat problem drinking. Her program employs the medication
topiramate (Topamax) and a combination of nutritional supplements including the
herb kudzu and specific amino acids known to affect alcohol craving.
It
also incorporates self-administered hypnotherapy recordings and simple
modifications to diet and exercise. Garcia currently follows approximately two
dozen patients and counsels other medical professionals in delivering the
therapy.
“This program is highly effective and very customizable,” says
Garcia, who has closely followed the research of Dr. Bankole Johnson, MD, PhD,
whose groundbreaking clinical trial involving topiramate was published in the
medical journal Lancet in May of 2002 and is recognized as a leader in the field
of addiction medicine.
Garcia serves as medical director for the “My Way
Out” program (www.mywayout.org) and wrote the foreword to a book of the same
name describing a system using topiramate and other therapeutic strategies to
curb the craving to drink. She says her patients uniformly report their craving
for alcohol subsides quickly and painlessly when following the
plan.
“It’s a craving that cannot be controlled by intellect,” she says.
“We have a general sense about what’s happening in the brain, but we don’t know
exactly how all the components in the program work. However, we do know they are
triggered rather quickly and in synergy.”
Topiramate, an anti-seizure
medication, is fundamental to the program and has been prescribed “off label” by
physicians with increasing frequency to treat a number of addictions, including
binge eating, smoking, cocaine abuse—even gambling. It appears to affect the
reward signaling center in the brain and blunt an alcoholic’s desire to drink.
However, Garcia and many of the patients she treats believes the effectiveness
of the program is due to more than medication.
Roberta Jewell is author
of “My Way Out” and concurs. Her book helped set the stage for the new approach
to treatment. A twenty-year obsession with alcohol drove her to create a program
to rid herself of her drinking problem. In it, she states the “single pill
approach” provided only short term results and other strategies failed her, as
well.
“I’d tried everything,” says Jewell, “from counseling to
medication to sheer will power, but nothing worked.” After searching two decades
for a solution, she combined a number of different elements into a program and
finally achieved success. “When you integrate the behavioral, the
pharmacological, the nutritional—when you tackle it from a multi-directional
approach, that’s when you get a really powerful system that can turn your life
around,” she says. “I’ve seen this program work over and over again—even for
people who have opted out of taking the medicine, although we do not necessarily
recommend that.”
Garcia agrees that times have changed when it comes to
treating alcohol dependent individuals. “As physicians, we finally have an
opportunity to provide an effective, integrative approach, just like we do for
patients who suffer with other diseases like diabetes or hypertension. And this
therapy can be administered without the emotional stigma and shame that often
accompanies addictive behavior.”
“Many people,” says Garcia, “will
benefit from this approach.”
The Newsweek story is available at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8100267/site/newsweek/.
For
more information about the program visit www.mywayout.org. To learn more about Dr. Linda Garcia, MD,
visit the publisher’s website at www.capalo.com.
Contact:
Kellie Hyder
e-mail
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907-322-7105
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/6/prweb248117.htm